The University of Connecticut’s Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) program held the opening night event for their annual senior exhibition on April 18 beginning at 5 p.m. in the Art Building.
The Bachelor of Fine Arts exhibition focuses on seniors graduating from the BFA program and is located at 830 Bolton Rd, Storrs. The event included work in the form of prints, graphic novels, animation, paintings, photography and more.
Following the opening night, the exhibition will be open every day this week from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. until its closure on April 25.
Student work was set up around the walls and on the tables in one of the exhibition rooms, with plaques denoting the name of the work, the artist’s name and a description of the work. Visitors were also allowed to engage with some of the art on display, including the graphic novels, which were set up on the main table for anyone to read.
The exhibition also included television screens, to depict the work of animators and videographers.
“I’m, like, nervous to see what people think about it,” tenth-semester student Maria Raiti said, whose work was featured in the exhibition. “I wanted to do more pieces, but I just didn’t have the space in there or the time. But I just hope everyone really likes what I did, and they can like resonate with the message.”
Raiti is in her fifth year at UConn, after which she will be graduating. Raiti is majoring in Illustration/Animation and is also pursuing a bachelor of the Arts in generalist digital media and design.
“This is the first time, like, that I’ve had my art on the wall for anyone to see,” Raiti said. “I did a couple self-portrait pieces about depression, and the struggles with it.”
Raiti described having initially struggled with planning out her pieces, before she decided to just tackle it on a day she was feeling emotional.
“The first piece I did was actually the second one [in the series], with the blurred-out face,” Raiti said. “And initially it was supposed to have a face, but I decided I liked the concept of not exactly seeing yourself but like recognizing it. So, I named the pieces, ‘Where am I?’”
In the exhibition room, there are two large pieces depicting Raiti. However, the image on the right is barely recognizable as Raiti, sporting a smudged, blurred together face.
“When you’re really deep in depression like that, sometimes you’ll look in the mirror and like not recognize yourself,” Raiti said. “Even though you know you should be looking at yourself. And so I wanted to reflect that in my pieces.”
The exhibition will remain open in the Art Building for those who wish to see it, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. until its closure on April 26.
For anyone who is unable to visit the exhibition in person, the exhibition’s Instagram account will be posting the work of the artists online on its page, according to a release.